Is Post Office International Money Transfers Safe?

Post Office, officially “Post Office Limited” with web address of postoffice.co.uk, is a retail post office company in the UK offering a range of services, among them international money transfers and other financial services like bill payments, branch banking, credit cards, mortgages, and high street savings accounts. The company has revenues in the hundreds of millions of pounds per year, and is employing more than 5,000 employees.

The company itself is one of the known UK companies, and would definitely qualify as “trustworthy” as per our standards, in spite of a variety of scandals and the fact its TrustPilot score is 1.6 stars out of 5 stars (with overall rating “bad”, for September 2024).

With that being said, the Post Office credibility is less of a factor in determining whether the Post Office International Money Transfer service is safe, legit and reliable than the company actually providing the service. The Post Office International Money Transfer is a white-label operation that is actually using Western Union to facilitate such international payments. Previously, until 2019, it used Moneycorp, one of our favourites.

Western Union is also a Goliath. In fact it’s a bigger company than Post Office Limited, being international, generating revenues in the billions, and employing more than twice as many people, but is it reliable? As per our Western Union review there is just such an overwhelming number of negative customer reviews, as well as bad press (mostly related to scamming made over their infrastructure) that we can’t call it either “safe” or “unsafe”. We’ll just remain neutral on this question.

Post Office International Money Transfer Customer Reviews

Research:

When it comes to customer reviews, postoffice.co.uk doesn’t excel with 1.6 / 5 stars on TrustPilot with vast majority of negative reviews. Western Union, the service provider stands at a better spot with 4.2 / 5, significantly less good than competitors like Currencies Direct, TorFX or Key Currency.

With the above being said, these reviews of either Post Office or Western Union aren’t necessarily made by customers who have used their international money transfer bank-to-bank function – Western Union is known for its cash transfers, and Post Office has much bigger businesses than its international payments.

Conclusion:

Hence, we can say that neither company has particularly great reviews with Post Office have actually terrible reviews for the most part, but that those reviews aren’t necessarily money transfer specific and can just give an indication, perhaps, of the overall brand satisfaction (rather than Post Office International Money Transfer reviews, per se).

Post Office International Money Transfer Rates & Fees?

Fees and rates:

It should be noted that the Post Office International Payments page has become a lot more user-friendly over the years that we have been following it (since 2014!), and that the Post Office has become more transparent about its international money transfer exchange rates. Nowadays you can simply input the amount you are looking to transfer and get an exact output of how much will you get in foreign currency prior to registering. This is a smooth element that reminds of Wise, the industry largest competitors for online money transfers. With some brokers like OFX, you’d only be able to see these rates after registering or upon using a tool like our international money transfer fee calculator.

When you use the Post Office International Money Transfer rates widget you’ll see something like that:

In this example above, we have asked to transfer £20,000 from UK to Italy and we can clearly see the fees are omitted (when transfer is funded via a domestic bank transfer and received by bank, otherwise could be high), and we can see the exchange rate is 1.13 Pound per Euro. This screenshot was taken on a Sunday so no rate fluctuations around then. At the same time, Nov 13 2022, the official rate was actually 1.141, as per below:

With simple mathematics we realise the cost of transferring Pound to Euro with Post Office International Money Transfer is just around 1% flat. Choosing a different destination doesn’t change the currency quotes (so transferring money to Spain, and sending money to France will cost also minimum 1%).

If we look at another popular destination, namely transferring money from UK to USA, we can see the following quote (again Nov 13, 2022):

The GBP/USD rate offered by The Post Office International Payments system is at about 1.5% markup from the real exchange rate.

Conclusion:

Post Office International Money Transfer rates move at about 1%-1.5% on the major currencies and is worse for exotic currencies, whereas competitor Wise’s margins hover at around 0.5% and there are several providers which attempt to offer even better rates (Worldfirst‘s best exchange rate promotion had transfers starting at 0.1% margins). Since the Post Office International Payments is not a brokerage you can also not assume that you can negotiate a better rate on transferring large amounts of money overseas.

Historical Comparison:

We can without doubt say that Post Office’s currency exchange rates are improving as compared to the past. We have been covering the service over the past 8 years and have seen its margins improving significantly (but still do not match up with the top Post Office alternatives).

Global Reach and Availability

Research:

• Dedicated Dealer: No
• Offices: London, UK
• Ways to approach: Support is available via phone 24-7, as well as email
• Translations: English only
• Accepts clients: From UK only
• Currencies Handled: 130
• Client reviews: overall very negative but not specific to international money transfer service

Western Union offers an impressive 24-7 phone support as well as an email support, but does not offer a dedicated currency dealer which is very highly recommended if you are making a large transaction.

Additional Functions

Post Office International Money Transfer does not offer any additional functionality to transferring money from UK internationally, it appears like. You can’t use it to receive an international payment even, there is no money transfer app, and FX hedging tools such as a Forward Contract aren’t supported. Additionally there are no multi-currency accounts available via PostOffice.co.uk international transfers.

One of the greatest advantages of registering with a money transfer service and passing through KYC processes is to eventually have an account that serves all your money transfer needs. For example, if you have a property abroad you use it to pay (usually, in instalments) for a house abroad, then you use it to pay mortgage but also to receive payments from renters, and potentially to hedge FX rates so that your investment won’t be as exposed to currency fluctuations. With Post Office, that is not the case.